A BIG EATER.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1580, 11 March 1887, Page 4

A BIG EATER.

There was an ordinary down town once, where, for the sum of 50 cents you were entitled to sit down at a table groaning with substantial viands, and eat as long and as much as ever you chose. A gaunt man from Maine, a Solon Shingle kind of individual, entered this ordinary one day, and proceeded to cram his 30 cents worth. He went in for the beef and he went in for tbe mutton, and he went in for turkey and cranberry sasa He devoured stewed tomatoes until you might have thought be was Eve's brother-in-law. He was a whale at sweet potatoes. He punished the quash, the celery, and the cold slaujh awfully. He roamed like a bee from flower to flower—from beef-steak to huckleberry pie, from Vanilla icecream to pork and beans, from succotash to meringues, from Phipps's ham to Indian pudding. He ate like Gargantua, like Bernard Kavanagb, the Fasting Man, (when there was nobody looking) ; like Ben Giles, the Roper; like Dr Johnsm at Streatbam, when the veal-pie and plums were to his liking, and there was plenty of capillaire to pour into his chocolate, and a good store of anchovy much wherein to souse his plum-pudding. He ate until the guests regarded him with affright, and the waiters gathered round and scanned him with minatory looks. He finished up with a fish ball or two, a couple of cobs of hot corn, with plenty of fresh butter, drank a mighty draught of cold water, ordered a tooth pick, and tendered 50 certs for his inordinate feed The " boss,'' or master of the establishment, folded his arme, aud, with knitted brow aid quivering lips, replied, " Don't see it, stranger ; 1 guess it's a quarter more." " Why,' expostulated the gaunt man from Maine, pointing to a printed notice on the wall, " I guess that paper Bays ' Dinner, 50 cents.' " " l'ep," rejoined the " boss," " but when a man eats as if there were no hereafter, we charge him sereLtv-five cents!''